H-Net Reviews
Wong, Chun Han. Party of One: The Rise of Xi Jinping and China's Superpower Future. : Avid Reader Press, 2023. xvi + 395 pp. $20.99 (paper), ISBN 9781982185749.$30.00 (cloth), ISBN 9781982185732.
Reviewed by Benjamin Tze Ern Ho (Nanyang Technological University)
Published on H-Diplo (February, 2025)
Commissioned by Seth Offenbach (Bronx Community College, The City University of New York)
Printable Version: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=61176
Among contemporary China watchers, there is a view that President Xi Jinping—in more than a decade of ruling China—has refashioned and remodeled the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and China’s political landscape into his own image. A case in point can be seen in the emphasis in recent years (particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic) on national security concerns instead of economic development, consequently affecting China’s relations with the rest of the world (particularly the West and the United States, which Beijing views as having designs on undermining its national security). Not surprising, scholars have attempted to divine what Xi’s worldview might be and how his thinking has shaped China’s foreign policy practices. Some notable works in recent years include Kerry Brown’s Xi Jinping: A Study in Power (2022), Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung’s The Political Thought of Xi Jinping (2023), and Kevin Rudd’s On Xi Jinping: How Xi's Marxist Nationalism Is Shaping China and the World (2024).
While these widely acclaimed books have provided good clues and insights into the thought forms and political world that Xi inhabits, their analyses tend to focus on specific aspects of Xi, such as his personality (Brown and Rudd) and his political ideas (Tsang and Cheung). Chun Han Wong’s Party of One moves the needle on the study of Xi in a decisive manner, in this case, attempting to connect Xi’s ability to effect real changes in China’s sociopolitical space through his executive power vis-à-vis the CCP. Among Chinese scholars, there is an acknowledgment that the CCP is not monolithically defined and that there exists a variety of views, factions, and ideological positions within the party. That said, I argue that under Xi, these factions are rendered powerless or irrelevant unless they happen to square with his own personal views. To evidence this, Wong uses his years of experience as a Wall Street Journal reporter who honed his craft in China. He provides us with a multilayered and multi-textured portrayal of Xi and illustrates how the CCP and China have been thoroughly “Xi-nicized” as Xi has stamped his influence not only within the party but also on the broader Chinese society.
To make sense of Chinese politics these days, one way is to recognize that the CCP sits on top of Chinese society and Xi sits on top of the CCP. By marrying Marxist-Leninist principles of control with a veneer of Chinese traditional thought (taken from the repertoire of Confucian and Legalist ideas), Xi has managed to exert and extend his control of the party and society in ways unimaginable since Mao Zedong—thus making him the paramount leader of modern China today. This is where Wong’s investigation and analysis in writing this book helps his work stand out from other comparable works. By telling the stories of the ordinary Chinese and Chinese officials, Wong is able to weave a compelling narrative of how Xi’s leadership has been decisive in spreading the widespread changes we see today in Chinese society. The common Chinese saying “Heaven is high and the emperor is far away” is sometimes used to lend credence to the belief that many local officials often disregard the wishes of the central authorities in Beijing, especially if these instructions run up against their own local priorities. Reading the Party of One, one comes away with a slightly different take in that “heaven may be high, but the emperor is not far away.” In other words, Xi’s influence is total and his political tentacles and reach go very far. As Wong observes in his analysis of how the party has exacted control over its own cadres (wherever they may be), “the leadership keeps tabs on elite party families through informants within their staff—scrutiny that dissuades many princelings and retired elders from criticizing Xi” (p. 73).
The focus on the mark Xi has made on the party is the strongest and most compelling aspect of the book. All eight chapters are single-mindedly focused on one outcome of Xi’s rule: the party. As I have observed elsewhere, Xi’s derivation of power and influence is intrinsically linked to his preeminence and position in the party.[1] To use a J. K. Rowling analogy from the Harry Potter books, Xi and the party have made “horcruxes” of one another.[2] Without the party with which to execute his wishes and commands, Xi would just be another Chinese citizen (out of the 1.3 billion citizens) or political official (with political ambitions but without the political platform to implement his ideas). Likewise, without a unifying figurehead in the person of Xi, the party would inevitably be consigned to factional struggles and internal competition, and in the worst case it would suffer the same fate as the Soviet Union some three and a half decades ago.
Xi has worked to ensure that party survival is contingent on the party being obedient—even subservient—to his wishes, while his ability to stay in power depends on his mastery of the party and his use of the party apparatus to achieve his own political goals. Unlike Mao who viewed himself as above the party, Xi’s fortunes are wholly linked to his place and position within the party. Wong thus tells the story of Xi’s power and influence within the party, from invoking anti-corruption measures (as of this writing, its defense minister Dong Jun is under investigation for corruption, suffering the same fate as his two predecessors), to writing the rules of governance, rejiggling the economy, and projecting its influence globally. While most of these observations and insights will not be new to seasoned Chinese watchers, Wong does an excellent job unpacking and putting on paper what has hitherto only been discussed or speculated about. His wide contacts of sources within China (intellectuals, dissidents, ordinary citizens) allow him to connect the dots in the Chinese political space and to conclude that “Xi’s efforts [in maintaining domestic stability] have yielded a nonpareil system of social control” (p. 92). By allowing his contacts to tell their stories where possible, Wong provides us with a kaleidoscope of narratives testifying to the overarching narrative: Xi’s words are law, what he says becomes policy.
Since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms and opening up in the late 1970s, China has prided itself on wanting to be open to the outside world so as to ensure economic growth. Even during the Tiananmen period of the late 1980s, where relations between China and the West witnessed a downturn, Beijing’s purge of liberal-minded colleagues was only short-lived as Deng himself embarked on his southern tour in 1992. This was followed by Jiang Zemin’s declaration that China aimed to build a socialist market economy, enshrining Deng’s path as official orthodoxy. All these have seemed to change under Xi; the party—not the market—reigns supreme. As Wong puts it, what is happening to China today is an economic “hybrid system that combines central planning with market mechanisms, where state and private enterprises act in concert to advance the party’s economic agenda” (p. 131, emphasis added). In other words, what is ultimately important to Xi is not economic efficiency (in which market forces play their role for better or worse) but the party’s benefits as a result of economic policies. The longevity of the party, not the health of the Chinese economy, is ultimately of key importance. A more vivid example would be the extended lockdown by Chinese government during the coronavirus pandemic in which Beijing did not open up almost a full year after many countries started to open their economies and to live with the virus as being endemic. As a result of the draconian measures taken during the pandemic, the Chinese economy tanked and Beijing today is still trying to recover from the economic damage.[3]
Given the above, one may think that Xi’s godlike status within Chinese society will be eternally secure or that there are no areas of weaknesses in Xi’s political armor. This is not the case, and this is where I think Wong’s portrayal of Xi—as being essentially unchallenged from both within and without—is not quite as clear-cut as the Party of One suggests based on my reading. To be fair, Wong in the conclusion makes the correct observation that “Xi’s China is brash but brittle, intrepid yet insecure” (p. 280); however, Wong does not go so far as to quite point out the chinks within the party, unlike other public intellectuals, like Singapore’s Bilahari Kausikan who talks about Xi as being a “single point of failure within the CCP system.”[4] In other words, by arrogating power to himself, Xi is creating a system that is ripe for disaster, especially when things turn sour. The lack of decentralized decision-making power means potential paralysis in decision-making. By second-guessing what Xi likes, rather than what he needs, Chinese officials and policymakers have little agency to “speak truth to power” and instead end up parroting official Chinese-speech. As evidenced by the coronavirus pandemic, Chinese officials in Wuhan were slow to act as they could not make any meaningful decisions until permission was given from the top in the early stages of the pandemic back in January 2020. Likewise, the recent purge of senior officials at the highest echelons of China’s political office, such as its former foreign minister Qin Gang and three defense ministers, suggests a level of incongruence between decision-makers at the top (including Xi) and the information they are given to make decisions (why weren’t these problems spotted and highlighted earlier?).
Seen this way, the problems within the Chinese political system should not be viewed in isolation and as having no bearing to the broader structure that has enabled the existence and even permissiveness of these problems. As William Shakespeare puts it in Hamlet, “there are more things in heaven and earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” One would hope that in sitting at the apex of power in the Chinese political system, Xi’s philosophy of the world would be sufficiently enlightened to recognize that in his party of one, the buck stops with him.
Notes
[1]. Benjamin Ho, “Why Xi Jinping Cannot Back Down on Coronavirus,” National Interest, June 4, 2022.
[2]. In the Harry Potter books, a horcrux is an object in which a dark wizard or a witch had hidden a detached fragment of their soul in order to become immortal or invincible.
[3]. “China Posts Record Deficit in 2022 on Covid Zero, Property Slump,” Business Times, January 30, 2023, https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/international/china-posts-record-deficit-2022-covid-zero-property-slump; and Sun Yu and Yuan Yang, “Why China’s Economic Recovery from Coronavirus Is Widening the Wealth Gap,” Financial Times, August 18, 2020, https://www.ft.com/content/e0e2940a-17cb-40ed-8d27-3722c9349a5d.
[4]. Bilahari Kausikan, “Address by Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan at the Third Atal Bihari Vajpayee Memorial Lecture,” Ministry of External Affiars, Government of India, Media Center, January 23, 2023, https://www.mea.gov.in/Speeches-Statements.htm?dtl/36142/Address_by_Ambassador_Bilahari_Kausikan_at_the_third_Atal_Bihari_Vajpayee_Memorial_Lecture_January_23_2023.
Benjamin Tze Ern Ho is an assistant professor in the China Programme, Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He specializes in the study of Chinese international relations and Asian comparative political order.
Citation: Benjamin Tze Ern Ho. Review of Wong, Chun Han. Party of One: The Rise of Xi Jinping and China's Superpower Future. H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews. February, 2025.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=61176
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